Felicia jiang '24

The photographs were taken in my father's study/bedroom on the first day of the Chinese New Year.

My dad is a Buddhist. So we have a family tradition to burn incense for Buddha in order to celebrate and to wish for a fortunate year. (This is something MANY Chinese would do though some of them are not technically Buddhist. We call this action 讨吉利, meaning "asking for good just in case it will help".)

My dad keeps many scriptures of Buddhism and has several statues of Buddha. One of them, shown in the photo, is the statue of Xuan Zang, a Chinese monk who traveled to India across mountains and deserts on foot in the seventh century and described the interaction between Chinese Buddhism and Indian Buddhism. He is my dad’s idol for his persevering determination and all-rounded talents.

My father’s study is on the third floor. And right outside the window, there’s a luxuriant Yulan Magnolia tree standing, facing the bookshelf that my dad keeps all the scriptures and the statues, with numerous pink flowers blossom under the sunshine. Yulan normally blooms once a year, but this Yulan tree blooms twice. My mom joked that it may be correlated to a Chinese idiom“花开见佛 (see Buddha in blossoms) ”, which can also be interpreted as “flowers bloom to have an audience with Buddha”.